You must never...

Being the freak about excellence that I am and being as obsessed with quality as I am, one of the obvious consequences is that I love observing what happens in other businesses with regards to the said elements. And how interesting that can become... During the week I was at an establishment which I visit very frequently and one part of their service chain was not functioning properly. Now - this is not an essential link in their chain, BUT - if we offer something to our clients and it isn't functioning, it is actually worse than not offering it at all. Why? Because if we offer the service/facility, we create an expectation that we will deliver. If we don't deliver, we have overpromised. "Never overpromise and underdeliver..." - isn't that more or less the first thing we learn regarding service? When one of the managers was alerted to this problem, it was something small and easy to fix, but whoever was in charge of it for that day, was obviously NOT excellence minded. They were probably there just to "do the job". Even though it was a small mistake, it left an impression of carelessness.

Any person who is truly focused on excellence, will know that they can never be less tomorrow than what they were today. When striving for excellence, tomorrow has to be better than today. Maintaining a good standard is great, but improving the standard is excellent. Keeping clients/customers happy is great, but delighting them is excellent.

Being the keen observer that I am with regards to service delivery, I am often astonished when I look at the leadership of organisations and I see how little they care for excellence. A person of excellence will not compromise his/her values and integrity. Yet, many leaders would like to believe that they are leading an establishment of excellence, yet their values and habits are not excellence-aligned. That is like wanting to lose weight while scoffing a 1000 calories too much on a daily basis: it JUST DOESN'T MAKE SENSE! Remember, that an organisation will not grow past the size of its leaders. If you are a leader and wondering about the lack of growth, lack of excellence, lack of discipline etc within your organisation, it may be time to quit looking at everything that everybody else is doing wrong... and start doing some serious introspection. Are you setting the right example? Are you REALLY behaving and performing in such a way that you will not mind it being duplicated by those working for you? Only you know the answers....
Keep leading, keep reading and keep on!
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